Royal Bloodline

It was a school day but Kaia Monroe was not at school again, the last thing Kaia Monroe remembered before everything changed was the cold. Not the kind of cold that goes away with blankets or warmth by breathing into your hands. This cold sank deep into her bones , a strange stillness in the lake, the way the air itself seemed to hold its breath when she stepped off the dock.

Then, silence.

Then, water.

She drowned. Or at least, she should have.

But she didn't die.

She woke gasping on the rocks, skin pale as frosty iceberg, eyes burning like hot coals. Her pulse never returned. Her breath never warmed. And when she stared into the water, the girl staring back wasn't the one who had gone in.

Kaia Monroe was no longer human

It had been three days since the accident or resurrection, if she dared call it that. She hadn't told anyone. Not her older brother. Not her best friend Raine. Not the school counselor who had called that morning about her missing classes.

She didn't know how to explain that she hadn't slept, hadn't eaten, hadn't even blinked without hearing everything - the whisper of the neighbor's cat across the street, the scrape of tree bark in the forest, the thrum of blood in veins that weren't her own.

Something had happened in that lake.

Something ancient.

Something too good to be true

Something quite strange

"You're late," Raine said, voice sharp but worried, when Kaia finally arrived at their usual rooftop hideout behind the Midvale train station. "Again." She added